How to change application icon in Xamarin.Forms?

Question

I replaced all the images everywhere (by this I mean in drawable folders and all Windows Assets folders and iOS Resources folder), but it still shows me the default Xamarin

Answer 1

For iOS in visual studio...

Step1: Generate all the app icons from https://appicon.co/

Step2: In solution explorer, under iOS project, expand 'Asset Catalogs' and double click on 'Assests'. You can change the existing 'AppIcon' icons or Add a new Asset and attach the icons.

This is how you add a new asset...

Step3: In solution explorer, under iOS project, double click on Info.plist. Go to 'Visual Assets' tab, click on 'App Icons' and change the 'Source' to the asset that you just created.

Done.

Hope this helps someone!

Answer 2

Summary (for Android)

1. Replace both png's in mipmap folders with your new icon
2. If you've cleaned and re-built project but still your new icons are not deploying: Delete obj folder from Android project directory

Details

This problem had me stumped for a while and none of the answers I found contained the solution.

Xamarin Forms/Android puts 2 icons in each mipmap folder (mipmap-mdpi, mipmap-hdpi, mipmap-xhdpi, etc) - icon.png and launcher-foreground.png.

Replace both these images in each of the mipmap folders. I kept the same names but it should be possible to use a different name.

I cleaned and re-built the solution a number of times, however, the app was still deploying with the default icons.

It turned out that the original/default icons still existed in the Android project obj folder, even after cleaning and re-building multiple times.

Android Solution

Delete the obj folder from the Android project and build the solution. This successfully deployed the app with the new icon.

Updating Name

If you changed the icon name(s) please ensure you update the reference on MainActivity.cs

[Activity(Label = "MyName", Icon = "@mipmap/myicon", Theme = "@style/MainTheme"]    
public class MainActivity : global::Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.FormsAppCompatActivity
{ 
}

You may also need to update the reference to launcher_foreground in icon.xml and icon_round.xml in the mipmap-anydpi folder.

iOS

For iOS, please see Managing Icons with Asset Catalogs. A summary taken from the linked page is provided below:

For icons, a special AppIcon image set can be added to the Assets.xcassets file in the app's project.

To use an Asset Catalog, do the following:

1. Double-click the Info.plist file in the Solution Explorer.
2. Click on the Visual Assets tab and click on the Use Asset Catalog button under App Icons.
3. From the Solution Explorer, expand the Asset Catalog folder.
4. Double-click the Media file to open it in the editor.
5. Under the Properties Explorer the developer can select the different types and sizes of icons required.
6. Click on given icon type and select an image file for the required type/size.
7. Click the Open button to include the image in the project and set it in the xcasset.

Answer 3

I had the same problem, but the following helped resolve it:

1. Go to MainActivity.cs (in the Solution Explorer)
2. Look for where it says 'Icon ='
3. Change the location of the Icon, but don't include the extension, i.e. jpg, png, etc. (For ex. Icon = "@drawable/weatherIcon")
4. Save the file
5. Restart debugging (the little restart icon beside the stop and pause icon around the top right-hand side of your screen)

If you get stuck on any part of this check out this short video from 02:47 onwards https://youtu.be/5g8lWPQZFxs?t=167. It helped me a lot.

Answer 4

If you replace the Icon.png and still nothing changed on the device, than change "Copy to Output Directory" propertiy to "Copy if newer" or "Copy always". That was my solution.

Answer 5

For Android try to set the icon app like this:

[Activity(Icon = "@drawable/icon")]
public class MainActivity : global::Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.FormsApplicationActivity
{
     .....
}

Make sure that you have changed all the icon images on all drawable folders ( drawable, drawable-hdpi, drawable-xhdpi and drawable-xxhdpi ).

For iOS I like set the app icons and splash screen with Asset Catalogs, here you can find a guide to how to use it:

https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/ios/application_fundamentals/working_with_images/app-icons/

Answer 6

Tested this today and noticed that you only need to change the icon images in all drawable folders,

              drawable,
              drawable-hdpi,
              drawable-xhdpi
              drawable-xxhdpi.

Depending on the device it's going to use different images. For me i used "Visual Studio Android Emulator" using:

              - 5" KitKat(4,4) XXHDPI Phone (Android 4,4 - API 19)

Did not need to uninstall and reinstall the app in the emulator, it updated on it's own after starting the project with "build" checked in the menu Build/Configuration manager.

On top of that no code changes were made!